


I'll Trace The Fading Map Of Memory (hoping that at the end of it all, you'll be there)

by Solitudinarian



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Kimi no Na wa. | Your Name., M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitudinarian/pseuds/Solitudinarian
Summary: He moved through the labyrinth of large bookcases, his gait heavy and sluggish, a small stack of books tucked snugly under his left arm, in a haze of pleasant drowsiness interspersed by brief moments of clarity. Waves of slumber continuously flowed over him and ebbed away, easing and nudging at his eyelids.“Will.”He shifted uneasily, tiny slivers of light ripping holes into his conjured reality, the impending eventuality of wakefulness pressing against his eyelids.“Will.”The gentle voice washed over him , comforting like the methodical strumming of the strings of an instrument, lulling him to and stirring him from sleep both at once.“Will,” came over the fading tinkle of a bell.He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, attempting to root himself in sleep. He didn’t want to wake up yet, just a few more minutes...There was a feather light touch on his shoulder. The slivers of light began to expand, encompassing and dominating over every bit of restraint he could muster.“Will? Don’t you remember me?”
Relationships: Jem Carstairs/Will Herondale, Sophie Collins/Gideon Lightwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Director's Cut Fest





	I'll Trace The Fading Map Of Memory (hoping that at the end of it all, you'll be there)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the movie Your Name.

_If there is a life after this one..._

He moved through the labyrinth of large bookcases, his gait heavy and sluggish, a small stack of books tucked snugly under his left arm, in a haze of pleasant drowsiness interspersed by brief moments of clarity. Waves of slumber continuously flowed over him and ebbed away, easing and nudging at his eyelids.

“Will.”

He shifted uneasily, tiny slivers of light ripping holes into his conjured reality, the impending eventuality of wakefulness pressing against his eyelids.

“Will.”

The gentle voice washed over him, comforting like the methodical strumming of the strings of an instrument, lulling him to and stirring him from sleep both at once.

“Will,” came over the fading tinkle of a bell. 

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, attempting to root himself in sleep. He didn’t want to wake up yet, just a few more minutes...

There was a feather-light touch on his shoulder. The slivers of light began to expand, encompassing and dominating over every bit of restraint he could muster.

“Will? Don’t you remember me?”

He startled awake with a jolt, blinking back against the sunlight filtering in through the curtains, sprawling onto the sheets. He turned on his side, propping himself on his elbow, rubbing at his eyes that were still sticky with sleep. The bed creaked rather loudly as wrestled out of his sheets and swung his legs over the side- a telling sign that he would have to check it soon to make sure it was sufficiently sturdy and wouldn’t collapse under him any time soon- glaring at the length of his bed as he sat on the very edge of it, still nestled in a daze.

The remnants of his dream cast a shadow over his thoughts, one that he could feel the constant presence of, night after night and day after day, but could never reach out to grasp and memorize the details of. Somehow, despite not being able to recall a thing from any of his dreams, he felt as though it had always been the same one for the longest time. Or maybe all his dreams were about the same thing because they left a similar feeling behind that frustrated him to no end-of loneliness, of something missing.

His left hand unconsciously reached to circle his right wrist and he felt a wave of shock go through him as his fingers were met with bare skin. He raised his right wrist so that it was level with his eyes, turned it in a circular motion, jerked it to the side, scrutinizing it. There was something wrong with it, he was certain, there- 

He blinked, dropping his hand to his lap in a sudden move. He brought it up to eye level again and stared at it for a full few seconds in a state of incomprehensibility. There was nothing- absolutely nothing- out of the ordinary with his wrist. But then why did he feel like-

_I’ve gone mad,_ he thought, carding a hand through his hair in frustration. _Stark raving mad._

He contemplated lying in for a few more minutes, perhaps it wasn’t time for him to be up yet- 

The trill of his alarm dispensed with any further arguments he might have made in that direction. 

Snatching his phone off the nightstand with a scowl, he aggressively swiped his thumb upwards over the screen to silence it, tossing it to the side not soon afterwards, burying his face in his hands with a groan. His eyes flitted to his right wrist once again as a flash of recollection cut a clear path through a myriad of memories but disappeared almost instantly, leaving him to trudge through them as one would through a murky flood of rainwater.

The temptation of sleep seemed void now and the lingering impressions of his dream had left him almost completely save for a persistent feeling of hollow emptiness, almost as if he was forgetting something...

He brought himself up to his feet with a jerk, willing his thoughts away, annoyed with himself. Every morning, the same thing, he’d have to stop with this. It wasn’t normal for him to be feeling this way constantly - any doubts he’d had regarding this fact had been trampled by the look of disdain from his sister and the constant concern from Tessa when he’d, quite a long time ago, reached the end of his limits and tried talking to him about it. This _feeling_ wasn’t in any way incapacitating but just that it was constantly there… 

_All those novels and poems are finally getting to you,_ he can almost hear Cecily’s teasing from all those years ago. 

_It’s nothing,_ he repeated as he locked the door to his flat and rushed down the stairs of the building, nearly barging into a fellow resident as he emerged onto the streets, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder. _Just as it always is._

But those self-reassurances were never comforting. Ultimately, they were merely empty words conjured with aimless intent.

♩✧♪●♩○♬☆

_Eight years ago_

If this was a dream, it was certainly his strangest one yet.

He was just barely holding back from screaming in horror as he eyed the reflection in the mirror that was most certainly not his. His hair had never managed to set this straight, nor did it ever have a singular white streak cutting through its dark shade. Gone were his blue irises, having been substituted with dark, brown ones. He had been staring at the mirror since the time he had woken up, since his feet had been met with a warm, wooden floor instead of cold tiles, with his study located in the wrong direction, his room having been stripped of half of its furniture and being replaced with unrecognizable items overnight. It was only several moments later, when he had realized that this room was most certainly not his, that a bolt of shock froze him in place leaving him feeling as though all the breath had been knocked out of him. Several possibilities had flashed through his thoughts that might serve to explain his present displacement from his own home and none of them had been particularly pleasant. He could barely bring himself to move but turned in place nonetheless, aiming to focus his attention through a door or a window, or anything which he could leave this place through, really, but had, unfortunately, been met with the sight of a mirror. 

_I must still be dreaming,_ he thought, tugging at his- no, not his, this...person’s - hair. It all felt too real to be a dream but there was no other possible explanation, was there? Yes, it had to be a dream. In fact, he’d been reading about out-of-body experiences the previous evening...perhaps some segment of his subconscious had chosen to interpret it with a little spin, leading to the ideas and thought of his soul possessing another body manifesting themselves in his dreams.

A light knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts as he whipped his head around to face the door in a panic. 

“Jem?” came a voice, accompanied by another rap at the door. “ It’s just about time for you to leave.” 

Will didn’t say a word, his throat seemed to be closing up and he could almost hear his sharp intakes of breath. 

_Jem,_ he thought vaguely. _That must be his name._

“Jem?” the voice came again, tinted with concern. “ Jem, are you awake?”

He braced himself and attempted to move forward. It appeared as though he’d have to open the door eventually. Or maybe he could wait it out, in the hopes that it was all just a dream and he would wake up in his own room at any moment. Besides, in the unlikely possibility that it wasn’t, in fact, a dream, it might not be entirely safe to-

The door swung open, interrupting his indecisive ramble. A woman stood in the doorway, her brow knitted and her mouth twisted in a frown. 

“Jem,” she said, surprised. “Are you alright?”

“I-” Will croaked before clearing his throat and gathering his nerves. “I’m- uh- fine.”

“I see?” the woman replied, not sounding quite convinced as she stepped into the room. “Are you certain? It’s alright if you feel ill-”

Will instinctively backed up as she stepped forward, nearly tripping and slamming into the mirror. The woman stopped in her tracks, her frown deepening. 

“I’m fine,” he said rather forcefully as she looked like she might step closer in an attempt to placate him. 

“Alright,” the woman said, looking terribly confused. “It’s just that...you aren’t dressed yet and it’s nearly time for you to be on your way.”

“Dressed,” Will parroted, feeling as though somebody had tossed him into turbulent, stormy waters and was expecting him to fend for himself. “ For- I- where exactly do I have to go?”

The woman now looked positively alarmed. “For school, Jem.”

“School,” Will repeated, all the while cursing his sudden inability to form coherent sentences. 

“Sophie and Gideon are here already,” the woman carried on. “But if you aren’t feeling up to it-” 

“I am,” he blurted out, unable to process anything else that was happening. All of this was just so surreal...

“I know you have the concert today,” the woman said uneasily.“But there’s really no need to worry-”

“Concert?” Will interrupted. 

“Yes, I know you’ve barely been able to detach yourself from your violin and you’ve spent weeks practising, but-”

The weight of the situation seemed to overwhelm him at once, leaving aching tiredness in its wake. The fact that he had no idea who this woman was or what she was saying oddly terrified him. 

“Now that you mention it,” he cut across her, his voice sounding faint to his own ears. “I feel...dreadfully ill.”

“You do?” the woman said, her eyes widening.

“Yes-uh-I won’t be able to go anywhere at the moment.” 

“Well, yes,” the woman said, sounding dazed for a split second. “Yes, of course. I’ll just be out to inform your friends and come right back in to check on you.”

Will heaved a sigh of relief as she left, pulling the door shut behind her, and passed a hand over his face. 

_What on earth-_

It was definitely far too vivid to be a dream.

Perhaps if he went attempted to go back to sleep, maybe he would wake up in his own body, in his own home and could forget this entire ordeal...

He moved towards the bed, laying himself down on it and eyeing the room around him with agitation that faded into slight curiosity as the minutes passed. He returned on his side so that he was facing the small nightstand placed at the side of the bed and reached out to pull the top drawer open, revealing a neat stack of sheets. 

_Music sheets,_ he realized as he picked out the topmost one to glance at it. 

His curiosity being piqued further, he shuffled around the empty sides of the drawer, retrieving only a worn pencil. He turned the sheet over to its blank side and scrawled a question onto it.

_Who are you?_

He bit his lip in thought. If he was in this person-Jem’s- body at the moment, did that mean Jem was in his? Had they somehow switched places in their sleep? Or was it truly just a ridiculous dream his mind had concocted? He touched the pencil to the paper once again, scrawling another question beside the previous one, for good measure

_Did you take my place when I took yours?_

He placed the pencil and paper in their rightful place with trembling hands, praying that he’d never have to receive an answer to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
